Federal Government

The Trump Administration has started canceling federal grants that fund arts and culture programs across the country, including here in Juneau. 

The cuts involve millions of dollars in grant funding doled out through the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. The president has also proposed eliminating the agencies altogether in his 2026 Discretionary Budget Request.

Among those affected locally are Perseverance Theater, Juneau Jazz and Classics, Sealaska Heritage Institute and the proposed Capital Civic Center in downtown Juneau. 

Frank Delaney, Perseverance’s managing director, said the theatre was among the hundreds of other art groups across the country that received an email from the NEA on Friday notifying them that their grants had been terminated. 

He called the Trump Administration’s actions short-sighted.

“They are misguided in what they think they are achieving,” he said. “I think that if the NEA does go away, America will be much worse off than it was with that program in place.”

Delaney said the email targeted a grant that had already been spent, and it’s unclear if the theatre will have to repay that money. He said the broader implications of the cuts and program terminations will have a chilling effect on the local arts community.

The nonprofit that is backing the proposed Capital Civic Center says the project has also taken a financial blow. The long-proposed convention and arts facility in downtown Juneau is meant to replace the existing Juneau Arts and Culture Center. 

Bob Banghart, executive director of the nonprofit, said he received notice that the National Endowment for the Humanities canceled a $750,000 grant for the project a few weeks ago. 

He said, despite the news, he remains optimistic. 

“With the inexperience and incompetence demonstrated by this administration, we’re kind of hoping that things will flip again, because they flipped everybody else around,” he said. 

The center is estimated to cost up to $60 million. Banghart said the grant cancellation won’t stop the project from moving forward, but they’ll still have to find that money somewhere else. 

Sealaska Heritage Institute also confirmed the cancellation of grant funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities. A representative for the Juneau Arts and Humanities Council, Phil Huebschen, said they don’t yet know what losses the nonprofit could face from the grant cancellations.

Huebschen announced their resignation Monday.

This post has been updated. 

Donald Trump’s return to the presidency has buoyed hopes for the 800-mile, $44 billion Alaska LNG pipeline project. And the project has taken some important steps forward in recent months.

But you’d be forgiven for being skeptical. Alaskans have dreamed for decades of a line that would bring the North Slope’s immense gas reserves south for export.

But there’s a reason it hasn’t happened: Nobody has wanted to pay for it.

So, is a gasline more likely than ever? Or is this déjà vu all over again?

Suffice it to say that Gov. Mike Dunleavy was encouraged when he heard Trump call out the gasline project: “My administration is also working on a gigantic natural gas pipeline in Alaska,” the president said in a speech to Congress back in March.

“Yes!” Dunleavy said in response, in a video his office posted to social media.

The video shows the governor watching Trump on a smartphone, offering color commentary and raising his fist in agreement. There’s some cheery acoustic guitar music in the background, a take on The Beatles’ “Here Comes The Sun.”

There is plenty to be excited about.

The state agency shepherding the gasline project has signed an agreement handing it off to a private developer for some final engineering design work. They’re hoping to get to an investment decision around the end of the year.

Dunleavy, after a trip to Asia earlier this year, came home with a nonbinding letter saying a Taiwanese state energy company is interested in buying gas from the project.

And, of course, the president has said it’s a priority — so much so that his administration is planning an Alaska summit with Asian leaders — potential gas-buyers — in early June.

So a lot of folks are saying things like this, from House Minority Leader Mia Costello, R-Anchorage, at a House Resources Committee meeting on April 30.

“After years of uncertainty, planning and perseverance, the AK LNG project is no longer just a vision,” she said. “It’s closer than ever to becoming a reality, thanks to significant progress in permitting, global interest and most importantly, renewed momentum from the federal government.”

The project, though, faces a lot of the same barriers it’s always faced. It’s hard to build a pipeline from the Arctic, never mind an 800-mile one. You have to have enough customers for the gas lined up for anyone to throw down the billions and billions of dollars it’ll take to get it built. The cost was last estimated at $43.8 billion in 2023, according to the Alaska Gasline Development Corp., the agency behind the project.

So Rep. Zack Fields, D- Anchorage, doesn’t want Alaskans to get ahead of themselves. There is one potential buyer who’s put pen to paper. Others haven’t signed on quite yet.

“I just don’t want people to be misled that this is about to happen,” Fields said. “I don’t think it’s extremely likely.”

The project faces opposition from conservation groups, who say extracting more fossil fuels would worsen climate change. But, like a lot of folks in this oil-and-gas-friendly state, Fields said it would be great if the pipeline is eventually built. It could provide some state revenue — though exactly how much isn’t clear — and perhaps lower energy prices for a significant fraction of the state’s residents.

For now, though, Fields said he’s not counting his methane molecules before they come south.

“I think it would be awesome if one of those buyers materializes and buys the gas,” he said. “But that hasn’t happened yet, and until it does, we’re not really in any different situation than we have been for the last 50 years.”

Though there’s still a long road ahead for the pipeline — even in a best-case scenario, gas wouldn’t start flowing until the early 2030s — one has to admit, it’s been a heck of a turnaround.

It was just a year ago that the future of the pipeline project was on the ropes. Lawmakers were frustrated at the gasline agency’s slow progress. They floated cutting its funding and mothballing the project.

One of those frustrated lawmakers was Sen. Bert Stedman, R-Sitka, a co-chair of the powerful Senate Finance Committee. These days, however, he’s more optimistic.

“It was, in my opinion, highly unlikely we’d get a gasline until the Trump administration came in,” he said.

That’s due in part to Trump’s hardball strategy on tariffs and international trade, Stedman said. Japan — one of the places Alaska’s LNG could go — has discussed increasing natural gas imports as a way to shink the country’s trade deficit with the U.S.

But whether that strategy will work, Stedman said, is uncertain.

“It remains to be seen if jawboning Japan and Korea will work to get them to write a check,” he said.

If it doesn’t work, though, Stedman has another idea for how the federal government could help get the pipeline built.

“A big equity infusion,” he said. “You put in $20 billion or $30 billion, or some significant number, to get in and get it built and de-risk it. And then, just sell it once it’s up and built and running and profitable.”

The investment, Stedman said, could even make the taxpayer some money.

Some immigrants living in Juneau left the United States recently after an email from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security told them they had to leave.

But one family who received the email hasn’t left.

A woman, her husband and teenage daughter fled Venezuela in May 2023 and eventually resettled in Juneau with temporary parole status. She spoke to KTOO on the condition of anonymity  because of her unstable immigration status. 

Last month, along with thousands of other people across the country, the family got an email from the Trump Administration saying it was time for them to leave the United States. It said they would be subject to prosecution if they stay. 

After receiving the email, she’s afraid they will all get deported. 

“Really they don’t feel safe at all,” said Gwenna Corvez. She’s a local English language teacher who translated the woman’s answers to KTOO’s questions.

“Their lawyer is telling them to be calm, that there’s a process for all of this. But they see on the news that the government now doesn’t respect the process and that they could be arrested and deported, and that there’s no guarantee that they’ll get to stay,” she translated. 

The woman said they can’t go back to Venezuela. Her family was targeted by the government there because her husband was a member of a union at a metal plant that Venezuelan authorities deem a threat.  

Her lawyer told her the email is unenforceable. Their parole status was canceled by Trump, but they are in the process of applying for other forms of legal status. As long as they are in that process, they shouldn’t qualify for deportation. 

The email was sent to thousands of people who legally entered the U.S. through a mobile app — CPB One. It wasn’t addressed to any specific name, or signed by anyone. Immigration experts say it’s a scare tactic. 

The woman says she did everything right to legally come to the United States, and that’s what makes getting this message so frustrating. 

The family’s journey from Venezuela to Juneau took a year, and they feared for their lives throughout. They crossed the notoriously dangerous Darien Gap, waited for months in Panama, and walked through most of Mexico. They heard stories of other migrants who were killed on the same journey. 

Then, using the CPB One app, they spent five months in Mexico City applying for an appointment to seek asylum in the U.S.

They arrived in Juneau last May. Since then, the woman has worked in housekeeping and her husband in construction. She said through Corvez that the community has been welcoming and supportive.

“It was the best decision that they made,” Corvez translated. “And they knew a group of people who volunteer at St. Vincent de Paul and they treated them like family and took really good care of them and never let them be alone. And she says it’s a very beautiful thing that’s happened here.” 

And those volunteers even helped her teenage daughter adapt to high school in Juneau. She’s making friends, and her mother is relieved. 

“The first day she was, you know, very scared because she didn’t speak any English but then a volunteer from St. Vincent came and helped and now she speaks English relatively well and has really good grades,” Corvez  translated. “Thank God, yes, really good grades now.”

And other families are in limbo, too, according to Corvez. She teaches English to students who belong to immigrant families in Juneau. She also taught the youngest members of another family that got the email – but they decided to leave.  

“They were sitting at their desks just a few days ago, and some of them had to leave,” Corvez said. “And so you have empty desks where these wonderful students were.”

And those empty desks leave other children from immigrant families in fear. 

“Some of the children who are left behind here are other legal immigrants who now wonder if and when the same thing might happen to them, right?” Corvez said. “Young children are paying closer attention to the news than ever before, and they kind of sense the new uncertainty in their lives.”

Part of that uncertainty stems from the way immigration orders are coming from the administration. Between Trump’s sweeping decisions, and judges blocking those orders, it’s hard to know what comes next. 

This is part two of a two-part series about immigration impacts in Juneau. Read part one here. 

Springtime is herring egg season in Southeast Alaska. Usually that means that the region’s largest tribal government would be setting up to deliver tens of thousands of pounds of the traditional food to tribal citizens across the region and beyond. 

But this year, those distributions won’t happen. 

The Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska announced this week that its annual traditional food distributions were canceled this year. In March, the federal government canceled a funding agreement with the tribe. 

For the last three years, the tribe distributed herring eggs, salmon and black cod to tribal citizens in each of its recognized communities — from villages in Southeast to cities like Anchorage and Seattle. 

But the U.S. Department of Agriculture canceled funding that provided the tribe’s food assistance program. A USDA notice to Tlingit and Haida said that the tribe’s community food distributions “no longer effectuates agency priorities and that termination of the award is appropriate.”

Aaron Angerman is Tlingit and Haida’s food security program manager. He said the community distribution program started in 2022 to promote self-sufficiency, and to reduce reliance on food shipped from the Lower 48.

“Our answer to that, and then our heavy reliance on barge systems and things like that, was to turn back the clock a bit about food sovereignty, which is something that our people have relied on since time immemorial,” he said. 

The tribe planned to use more than $500,000 from the USDA for the distribution. The money was allocated to the tribe in January, but USDA sent Tlingit and Haida a notice in March that said the agreement had been canceled. 

The money was part of a program called the Local Food Purchase Assistance Agreement which was intended to encourage local governments to buy from farmers and food producers.

And that aligned with the tribe’s goal to keep more traditional foods that are harvested in Southeast Alaska in the fridges and freezers of tribal members. 

“For us to be able to take a food that was purchased from commercial vendors, to contract those vendors who are tribal citizens, to keep not only that funding within the tribe and the region,” Angerman said. “But also take a food source that was harvested in our area and typically sent overseas to bring that food back to our people and to be shared.”

The herring egg distribution is special for this reason: because of overfishing and exporting of herring and herring roe, the fish now only spawn in very limited areas.

Angerman said his team is working to get more secure funding. But there’s a lot of other work they are doing to further the understanding and use of traditional foods in the meantime.

“We need to work with elders and those with traditional ecological knowledge to see why and where and how we harvested previously,” he said. “Then to not only do that, but to teach people how to harvest themselves, how to process that food, how to put up or prepare that food.” 

Because, he said, if a salmon ends up on someone’s doorstep, and they don’t know how to process it, that isn’t food sovereignty.

Angerman said Tlingit and Haida was able to purchase enough herring eggs to bring to some of their tribally-run and federally-funded Head Start preschool classrooms this year, so the youngest tribal citizens can still learn about the importance of traditional food and land stewardship. 

And some distributions in Washington and Oregon will still happen, according to the tribe’s release. The local tribal council in Seattle used different funding sources to set aside money for distributions to reach elders outside of Alaska. 

Hundreds of workers in Juneau joined thousands nationwide on Thursday night at protests to mark International Workers Day, also known as May Day. 

Cardboard signs crumbled and paint dripped as roughly 400 protesters gathered in the rain to call for better working protections and other causes at the Alaska State Capitol. It resembled many other rallies held in Juneau this year to denounce recent actions by the Trump Administration. 

Eric Antrim is the recording secretary for the local National Federation of Federal Employees union, which represents hundreds of Forest Service workers in Alaska.

“Our brothers and sisters in the labor movement have been standing shoulder to shoulder with federal employee unions and protests throughout this troubled country,” he said. “My National Federal Employees Union is more than 100 years old. We are not going anywhere, no matter how many illegal executive orders Trump signs.”

Hundreds of federal employees in Alaska have lost their jobs as President Donald Trump slashes the federal workforce. According to recent city data, the federal government is Juneau’s second-largest employer after the state, with more than 700 workers.  

Local groups organized the rally, like Juneau Indivisible, Juneau for Democracy, ReSisters, Planned Parenthood Alaska and Action Alaska. The groups have hosted a handful of other protests in recent months. The rally also tackled broader issues going on across the nation, like the dismantling of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. 

X̱’unei Lance Twitchell, an award-winning writer and professor of Alaska Native Languages at the University of Alaska Southeast, spoke at the rally. 

“When I go places, I say my name is X̱’unei. I’m also known as Lance. My middle names are diversity, equity and inclusion,” he said. 

Twitchell called on protesters to stay united amid what he called attacks on Indigenous and civil rights by the Trump administration. 

“Just because someone could say something the loudest and the strongest, and you could write your name to a piece of paper saying ‘This word is illegal, now nobody can use this word or we’ll take all the money away.’ That’s not how things work in this country,” he said. 

The rally concluded with an Alaska Native song and dance before attendees marched to the cruise ship docks. It was one of more than 15 rallies held at the Capitol since the Trump Administration took office. 

Listen:

Fourteen members of Carolou’s family moved to Juneau after fleeing unrest in Haiti. 

“My country is not doing well right now,” she said.

Carolou has protected status in the United States, but is using an old family nickname in this story because that protection ends in August.  

Immigrants and refugees across the country are getting emails from the Trump Administration that say they have to leave the United States or face prosecution. 

“Do not attempt to remain in the United States,” the email Carolou’s family received reads. “The federal government will find you. Please depart the United States immediately.” 

She said her family was heartbroken when some of them got the email.

Carolou has a sister who already lives in Canada, so seven members of the family went quickly to join her – including her sister and daughter.

“They just left because they can’t stay, they are scared,” she said. “And we are separate again.” 

They arrived in Juneau just last year, so their immigration status is not as secure as other members of the family.

Many immigrants in Juneau have a couple of different forms of temporary legal status, which make it easier for people fleeing violence and instability to get to the United States compared to the sometimes more than a decade-long process to gain refugee status.

Carolou has temporary residency and works as a paraeducator. She has been in Juneau for more than a decade. She and her family members have built lives here. 

This same email has gone out to tens of thousands of people who legally entered the U.S. through a mobile app — CPB One. During the Biden administration, this app was how immigrants were able to make appointments with U.S. Customs and Border Patrol to seek asylum at legal points of entry instead of crossing the border illegally.

President Donald Trump has pledged to not only end some of these temporary statuses, but revoke them before they expire. 

Margaret Stock is an immigration attorney in Anchorage. She said she’s seen the email, and she doesn’t think it’s legally enforceable. 

“The messages do not appear to actually have any legal force of law, and they don’t, you know, there’s no such thing as an email message ordering you to leave the country that’s legally effective,” she said. “You have to have a deportation order from a judge.”

Stock said it’s not even clear if the people who received the email are actually on immigration enforcement’s radar. The emails weren’t addressed to any names. 

She said she thinks it was meant to scare people into leaving, which aligns with the Trump administration’s goal to remove immigrants from the United States.

But she said forcing immigrants to leave Alaska is especially damaging to the state’s economy — like Carolou, many work in fields that are understaffed. 

“We have huge shortages in the health care industry and teaching profession and assisted living facilities, service workers, the tourism industry,” she said. “You know, there’s, like, actually no sector of the economy right now I think that has enough workers in Alaska that I can think of.”

Carolou’s son helped her apply for permanent residency, but she said it was rejected because of a missed signature on one of the forms. She plans to try again. 

Carolou’s temporary status has usually been extended for immigrants from countries where instability remains a risk to its citizens’ health and safety. But Trump has vowed to end that status for Haitians, even though the dangers there haven’t gone away. As of right now, she would have to leave in August. 

Organized crime runs Haiti, and according to Human Rights Watch, it’s only getting worse. So Carolou says she can’t go back.

“In Haiti I will be murdered. I will be murdered if I go there,” she said. “They will kill me. And this government is still the same. Nothing’s changed. Nothing. It could be suicide if I go to Haiti.” 

Carolou says she likes Juneau, but it’s hard to see her family leave. Before they were reunited in Juneau, she missed being able to hug them.

“As a mother, I suffer,” she said.

Now, she misses her daughter again, but doesn’t want to leave her job as a paraeducator – and the responsibility of care for her aging parents.

This is part one of a two-part series about immigration impacts in Juneau. Read part two here.